Who Can Blaspheme?

Last updated on: September 30, 2012 at 4:02 pm by Leah Libresco

Who Can Blaspheme? 2012-09-30T16:02:39-04:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Today is International Blasphemy Rights Day, spearheaded by the Center for Inquiry. It’s pretty much Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, but with a broader focus. I fully back CFI’s fight against blasphemy laws (remember, just in the past few months, Alexander Aan and that girl in Pakistan). I’m a little more dubious about the practical use of having people in the U.S. and other relatively free nations blaspheme as a way of drawing attention/funds to the fight against blasphemy laws. But neither of those two issues is the topic I want to discuss today.

Blasphemy is one of the sins I’m a little confused about. It seems like it’s about the betrayal of a relationship, and I don’t really understand how that can happen if you’re unaware of the relationship. Let’s contrast blasphemy with the crime of insulting the Thai monarchy. Although these laws might be enforceable in Thailand, they aren’t binding in the rest of the world. Whether or not the Thai king actually has rightful authority over Thailand, he definitely doesn’t have it over the whole world. I have no fealty to him, so the only responsibility I have to betray is the same kind of responsibility I have to all human beings (which is rather a lot to be going on with).

Christianity makes a more audacious claim. Christ the King does have rightful authority over everyone, but this claim is as unobvious to many people as the Thai king’s claim to the whole world would be. So maybe the better analogy would be being raised by a single mother, unaware of the identity of your father, and then failing to meet him and take care of him in his old age. This lapse would be tragic, for you and for him, but it wouldn’t be a chosen slight. And a mortal sin must be committed with full knowledge and consent.

So, are people participating in Blasphemy day actually blaspheming? I’m not sure. Intuitively, this seems more like the kind of sin that only religious people can commit against their own religions; to choose to profane something, you must first acknowledge it as holy.

Further reading: While still an atheist, I wrote a series of posts opposing PZ Myers’s desecration of a consecrated Host, since it seemed only intended to upset people, not to defend his own freedom.

Further further reading: Atheist Kenan Malick has posted the transcript of a talk he gave on the history of blasphemy laws. It includes this interesting excerpt:

Despite the concern with God and Christianity, the outlawing of blasphemy was less about defending the dignity of the divine than of protecting the sanctity of the state. In 1676 John Taylor was convicted of blasphemy for saying that Jesus Christ was a ‘bastard’ and a ‘whoremaker’ and that religion was a ‘cheat’. ‘That such kind of wicked and blasphemous words were not only an offence against God and religion’, observed the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Matthew Hale, in front of whom Taylor was tried, ‘but a crime against the laws, States and Government; and therefore punishable in this court; that to say religion is a cheat, is to dissolve all those obligations whereby civil societies are preserved; and Christianity being parcel of the laws of England, therefore to reproach the Christian religion is to speak in subversion of the law.’

…Four hundred years after Taylor’s conviction, Lord Denning, perhaps Britain’s most important judge of the twentieth century, made, in 1949, much the same point about the relationship between blasphemy and social disorder, though he drew the opposite conclusion about the necessity of the law. Historically, he observed, ‘The reason for this law was because it was thought that a denial of Christianity was liable to shake the fabric of society, which was itself founded on Christian religion.’ But, Denning added, ‘There is no such danger in society now and the offence of blasphemy is a dead letter.’

Back then, there was more agreement that Christian natural law undergirded social law. Now, post-Christian thinking has managed to pull in a lot of the results of Christian metaphysics, but hasn’t always bothered to derive them from a new metaphysics. So Denning is probably right that all the scaffolding exists to sustain the necessary ideas without belief in God. But it makes me wonder what the new unthinkable thought is. (Possibly relativism).

Previous Post

September 29, 2012

Contra Pangloss et Oprah

Next Post

October 1, 2012 Costuming Collapse

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the first person to see Jesus after His resurrection?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Thomas Peter Mary Magdalene John